January 2010

January 31, 2010

The Grammys hadn't even started and already four of the five hip-hop awards had been handed out. Jay-Z grabbed two of them -- Best Rap Solo Performance for "D.O.A." and Best Rap Song for "Run This Town" with Rihanna and Kanye West. The latter added a second award -- and the only one presented live on the broadcast, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration -- to bring Jigga's total to three for the night.

Once presenters Mos Def and Placido Domingo figured out how to open the envelope and read "Run This Town," Rihanna and Jay-Z stepped to the stage and thanked the absent "genius that is Kanye West" in a speech kept brief.

Soon after, Wyclef Jean was given a solo spotlight to make his pitch for continued Haiti support.

Eminem's Relapse won Best Rap Album honors, which comes as no surprise to us, but is still a disappointment. The Grammys could have picked up some more credibility by not making the obvious choice. (Q-Tip's The Renaissance would have received my vote.) Em's "Crack A Bottle" collaboration with Dr. Dre and 50 Cent also won Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group, putting our first-ever predictions at 2-for-5. (We apparently overestimated the influence of Justin Timberlake on Grammy voters.)

One of the early highlights was a Beyonce medley that included an angry performance of Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know." Did Jay-Z do something we don't know about? Jay did win the face off with B in the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration category, as his Kanye collabo beat hers. In fact, West had a 60 percent chance of winning, lending a hand to three of the five nominees.

In a bizarre twist, what was presented by Robert Downey Jr. as an opera performance quickly turned into a Jamie Foxx set that grew to include T-Pain, Doug E. Fresh and Slash. Foxx closed with "I apologize for the auto-tune Jay-Z." Eminem, Drake and Lil' Wayne also performed.

Beyonce finished with a record six trophies for a female artist, beating the five she, Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys and others had won at previous shows.

January 30, 2010

The 411 Online has kept a record of every rap Grammy ever awarded, but we've never tried predicting who would win before. That changes now. It's not easy getting into the warped mind of the Grammy voters, who often overvalue pop artists, fall in love with creating repeat winners or just generally have no clue.

January 27, 2010

Dr. Dre is a notorious perfectionist, so it comes as no surprise that he takes years between albums. But we've entered our second decade of waiting for Detox, as Dre's last album was released in November 1999. He might have thought it was safe to hide out overseas, but Great Britain's The Guardian newspaper caught up with the hip-hop legend this weekend and asked him what the holdup was.

"I'm working hard on it. I'm stopping to work on other artists in-between, but the minute it's done and I feel it right here, that's when it will come out," Dre told The Guardian. "Hopefully the beginning of 2010."

But that timetable was ambitious, and even Dre quickly admitted that the key word in that quote was "hopefully": "You'll probably hear something in a year or so," he told Slam magazine for their March issue. That puts the latest ETA at January 2011, but undoubtedly he'll have another excuse ready by then. Perhaps too much time in the clubs?

"I have to go out to clubs now," Dre told The Guardian. "You need to understand what people are listening to."

He didn't say if that same kind of Detox research from several years ago still helps him today.

It's become a nearly annual winter ritual for Dre to tease the release of Detox, dating back at least to 2002 in The 411 Online's records. That January he said he it could be done by the end of the year, a statement he's echoed in one way or another in January 2006, December 2006, December 2008 and now January 2010. (Dre did not, however, address it in our interview with him in 1995. Back then, it was the Dr. Dre-Ice Cube reunion album that was perpetually on hold. Still waiting for Helter Skelter.)

More than just fans are fiending for another hit of Dre's golden touch.

"He's gonna drop it. He's just ... a perfectionist," Warren G told Hard Knock TV. "When he feels right, that's when he's gonna let it go. I think he's close because when he starts working with Snoop, that's when I know he's getting down to the wire."

And Snoop Dogg certainly won't be the only one making a guest appearance.

"Me and him are supposed to do a record on there," Warren G added. "He said as soon as he finds the right record, with the right melody, we'll do it. I think it'll be something that the world would love to see 'cause it's never been done. The publicity on it will be huge. It's like, 'Warren G and Dr. Dre doing a song? That's crazy.' I'm open. I'm with it."

Who knows if that collaboration will become that "perfect song" Dre mentioned he is searching for.

"I don't think I've done that record yet," Dre told The Guardian. "I'll know what it is when it comes; I know exactly what it is in my head, but I haven't done it yet. It's close. ... Once that sound is right, once that mix is right, it's a feeling that you get. It's unexplainable."

And of course, once Detox finally does hit stores, Dre thinks there's only one way to listen to it: Through his Beats by Dr. Dre line of headphones. "I just want to get my music out and make sure that it's heard in the right way," Dre said, who added that speakers might be next because so many people are listening to music "the wrong way" -- on cell phones, MP3 players, etc. "Once it gets to your computer, everything's compressed. It's like smashing sound. So we're trying to fix that."